Friday, March 24, 2017

Murari’s revenge

Murari
walked the long stretch from the desolate railway station to his village. It
was sweltering hot with not a blade of grass moving. He could see no cattle
grazing or birds flying. Perspiring heavily, he took the water bottle from his
bag only to find it empty. He threw it away and looked around in frustration.
He knew from the familiar scene he was almost near the village that he had left
five years back in anger and humiliation. The anger had not died down but still
simmering inside waiting for the revenge to soften it. He could gather the guts
to avenge only now. He sat on the bench of a tea stall on the outskirts of the
village to have tea before proceeding further

As
he entered the village, he started trudging with a deliberate limp to mask his
identity towards his old house to find the hedge between his house and the adjacent
Bola’s house had been removed and the whole space enclosed by a common boundary
wall. His house, a small tiled structure in the vast ground that was adequate
for his wife and two boys stood undemolished but the cattle shed had been expanded
with many cattle in it.

Trouble
started when Bola cast his covetous eyes on his land. He wanted it to make one
large ground along with his to start an akhada. He tempted him with a good
price but when Murari declined telling that it was a family property coming
from several generations, Bola started threatening him. He was a wicked man
with several criminal cases of intimidation, assault, cheating, rape and land
grabbing against him. He had managed to stay out of law enforcement due to his
clout with local MP as his sidekick. He became insistent that Murari part with
the property and when rebuffed he warned that his family would pay one day for
his adamancy. Murari ignored the veiled threat

Till
one day, he came to rue for not judging correctly the extent of Bola’s greed
and cruelty. He returned home one evening from the fair in the adjacent village
to find to his great horror his children lying outside the house shot dead and
wife lying dead semi naked inside the house with deep cuts by knife across her
face and several places on her body indicating much resistance before being
violated.

Shocked
he ran to Bola’s house screaming incoherently and mad in rage at the enormity
of the crime. He saw several of Bola’s henchmen in the compound. Bola came out instantly
and denied any knowledge of the gruesome killing or having heard any noise and
commiserated with Murari at the tragedy. Murari could see through the smirk on
his face his false pretensions and knew who the culprit was. He swore to
himself in the name of his honour that he would avenge one day the death of his
family.

Five
long grueling years had passed by and he was at last back at the village with
revenge still gnawing his heart. He saw someone sitting inside the porch in
Bola’s house with his face partially covered by a pink towel and the eyes with sun
glasses. Murari involuntarily felt for the country weapon on his side and moved
closer with confidence towards the gate to get a clearer view of the man.
Murari was sure that his own beard, his limp and unkempt hair would not give
him away. He had also grown thinner in these five years.

“Hey, who are you and why are you standing
there? What do you want? shouted the man from the porch. Murari could recognize
the gruff voice with no difficulty.

“I
am looking for one Murari who used to live here. He is a distant relative of
mine,” replied Murari.

“Öh,
oh. Don’t you know that he left this place year back along with family after
selling his house? He was not making much money from agriculture and went in
search of better prospects. Poor man, he was a good person,” said the man from
the porch.

“Any
idea where they have gone?” asked Murari

“No,
he did not leave any information with anyone about his new place,” said the man.

“Thank
you. I am unlucky to miss my relative. I will be on my way,” said Murari as he
walked away.

There
was silence for a while and the man from the porch asked one of his men to see
whether the visitor was visible. The man went near the gate craned his neck and
peered both sides of the road carefully as it was dusk already. He turned to
the man in porch and said the man had gone and was not to be seen.

The
man sprang up throwing away his pink towel and hailed his family to come out of
the house. The men not knowing why the master was happy joined in the laughter
much like Gabbar Singh’s men. Bola turned to his wife and said, “I knew it was
Murari. The chaiwala Munni rang me up saying that one-man resembling Murari was
walking towards our house with a limp. So I covered my face, had our men
standing outside to scare him and asked you people to remain inside. Come on,
let us celebrate our good luck.”

As
Bola, his wife and two children of his danced their way to the gate and peered outside,
Murari popped up suddenly from behind the side wall and as he put his hand on
the side pocket he said “Lucky I am, that you celebrated your escape a bit too
early. I had hidden myself inside the well outside the wall and knew you would
come out but never expected the whole family. I have been waiting for this day
for five long years. I thank God for my good fortune”

The
henchmen who started crowding towards the gate fell back as Murari avenged the
murder of his wife and children but spared the Bola’s wife and her children as he
felt he had no quarrel with them. He did not care for his life anymore and
started walking whistling a Sholay tune loudly. He felt lighter in his heart and
better as a human as he walked with a spring in his step. The men stood back
half perplexed and half afraid to follow him.

you never fail to spring up with innovation and the twists at the end of each of your story..this one is no different..imagination aside, there are Muraris in our society who get to deal with harsh realities such as these

Excellent story of revenge KP Sir. I was so angry on Murari's behalf that I would have enjoyed reading a more vivid detailed attack on Bola. :) I'm glad he avenged his family's death. Excellent potential for a full novel!

An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth is very unlike the random thoughts that I have read so far..the "dangal" was indeed a potboiler with lot of Sholay references:)The names of characters are so very typical of our Indian villages and the narration gripping as ever!

Like the smart teacher who drops an irrelevant remark to check if her students were paying attention to her lecture, Sir, you jolted us out of our complacency by creating this story of violence and vendetta, almost akin to Marie Corelli style !!